


the name you call in place

by blanchtt



Category: Carol (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-13 03:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: He’s taken and taken from her until she hardly exists, Carol thinks, waves at the train as it departs from the station with a grinding of gears, though she can’t see Therese through the cold-fogged windows. It’s a murder of sorts, with all the finality of one, because Harge will never, ever let go.There’s only one way out, so let the punishment fit the crime.





	the name you call in place

**Author's Note:**

> Gone Girl AU.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. _What are you thinking, Amy?_ The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer.

— _Gone Girl_

 

 

 

What’s the matter? […] Do you realize how many times a day you make me ask you that?

— _The Price of Salt_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes a pool of blood, a lie about a pregnancy, her disappearance, and little else.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

_January 4 th, 1950_

_I’m so very happy. I’ve met a man, a wonderful, sweet, caring man._

_This is several days late but champagne and parties will do that to you. Regardless, the scene should be set for posterity._

_A cold night even for January, a New Year’s celebration, too many people to count. The party is in full swing, the music loud, the guests happy. Jeanette walks away for another glass, leaving me alone to nurse my champagne. I wore that dress—you know, the green one. And who could have known that it would attract the eye of Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome. Harge._

_We speak and somehow never stop, and before we know it the countdown is beginning, songs ready to be song and glasses ready to be clinked in toast, so I pull him back to our happy crowd—me and Jeanette and her husband. And I will never forget how that felt, to stand there in the half-dark, looking back at the party, over the shoulder of the man I will spend the rest of my life with._

_It felt like happiness and a promise. And I want that feeling to last and last._

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She’s gone to so many of these parties that she could move through the crowd without thinking, say hello and inquire about children and take a glass of something off a tray and then excuse herself, find herself outside, all without even having tried.

 

 _That’s not a good thing, Carol_ , she can hear Abby say worriedly, like she always says when she tells her about how she spent the better part of a coming out party in the bathroom, smoking, or in someone’s husband’s empty office, perusing through the big heavy books on dusty, little-used shelves.

 

But the optimal word is could.

 

 _Could_ , if she were alone to move as she pleased, because those are her favorite kinds of parties—the kinds that don’t require Harge to be front and center, entertaining with her as a mere trophy on his arm, or the kind in her own home where she can slip away quietly, drink a rye or two in the kitchen under the guise of getting the place settings just right or checking on the amount of hors d'oeuvres they have left or some other believably dreary domestic excuse.

 

But tonight there is a flute of champagne in her free hand, her other grasping the crook of Harge’s arm, Harge with his slicked-back hair and trim suit and unshakable confidence, and he sweeps through people, says hello to the most important, introduces her almost incidentally—“My wife, Carol.”—and dives right into business.

 

“Have you seen the profit on the Harris account?” Harge starts with a laugh, addressing one of the men now part of their little inner circle, a group that is no doubt impossible to miss, even in such a party, and Carol raises her glass, takes a polite drink because she knows nothing about the Harris account and even if she did, she’d find the talk of business and profit boring.

 

She is amiable enough at parties, she knows—even now, she _is_ smiling, and she lets a measure of warmth, real warmth, slip through when she meets the eyes of the other man’s wife as she lowers her glass, receives a tired one back in return, one that says _aren’t they all the same, always talking about business?_

 

She’s already forgotten the man’s name, Carol realizes suddenly, as he says something and everyone laughs politely. They’d exchanged pleasantries, and she’d let it pass her by as unimportant. But his wife’s is Martha, and she lets her thoughts drift, careful to keep her gaze from lingering too long.

 

It has been a long time since Abby, Carol thinks.

 

After a suitable amount of time and at a suitable lull in conversation, never interrupting, the Harris account story long over and moving onto something involving a Silverstein, she gives Harge’s arm a squeeze.

 

“I’m going to step out for a breath of air,” she whispers with a smile, places a kiss on his cheek and excuses herself.

 

She slips through the crowd and passes the quartet playing Bach in the corner, heads for the hallway and to the left and into the room they’d deposited their coats when they’d first come in, grabs hers off the bed, and slips out a door that looks like it leads to the yard.

 

She finds she’s in luck and the house has a decent veranda, a few people already out on it—three men talking business, speaking in low voices and cloaked in the smoke of cigars, and a couple, the woman with her back to the railing and smiling and the man with an arm against it, leaning close.

 

It would be unseemly to pace along the veranda, though it’s what her body urges her to do, so instead she shrugs on her coat, takes a place at the railing, leans against it and lights her cigarette.

 

One’s supposed to conform, Carol reminds herself, as she has many times before. She breathes in deep, feels the burn of the smoke against her throat before exhaling. It’s become a mantra of sorts, like yogis use to focus themselves. Conform. Conform. Conform.

 

Yet it’s terribly hard to do, even after a lifetime of trying. In fact, she may have worked herself into a situation that only makes it harder and harder. Of her own volition, Carol thinks, lets out an amused breath. More often than not, when dinners and parties wind down, when the men have retreated somewhere to smoke and drink and she lingers with the other wives, smile on her face as she plays cards or helps clean up or simply sits around and drinks with them, she says nothing and only nods along to avoid saying the wrong thing, as she often does.

 

Carol flicks ash from the tip of her cigarette, draws her coat closer with her free hand. The weather promises sleet tomorrow, if not snow, and now, December here, there will only be more parties, grander ones, requiring her to smile more as well as more convincingly. Christmas at Harge’s with his family, cold and stifling for more than one reason. New Year’s among Harge’s guests, businessmen and their wives, of whom she knows none.

 

Martha is beautiful, Carol thinks wildly, suddenly, thinks of the way Martha’s dress dipped low and bared her collarbone, and leans a little harder against the railing, knows no one else on the veranda is paying her any attention at all, concerned in their own affairs.

 

She takes another drag, to occupy her hands and her mind, because she looks out into the darkness, away from everyone talking and drinking and dancing inside, and not for the first time takes a firm grasp of her emotions, almost physically reigns in the desire in her heart and her hands and her legs to simply walk down the steps, into the darkness, and disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_July 8 th, 1950_

 

_I have become a strange thing. I have become a wife. I find myself steering the topics of conversations—bulkily, unnaturally—just so that I can say Harge’s name aloud, to friends and family and even the cashier at the grocer’s. To myself. Carol Aird is some other woman’s name, one I try constantly to measure up to._

_The house is large, grey, a beautiful old thing. Classic, his mother corrected me when I’d dared to speak about it at yesterday. As if one word, a synonym, could make that much of a difference._

_Before the things had been moved in, I’d walked all through it, peering into each of the rooms, all of them holding such promise. The master bedroom, large and elegant with its dark paneling. The staircase, begging for photos framed along the wall. A bedroom, bright and airy and perfect for a nursery._

_In any regard, it’s all mine to do as I please with. I’ve purchased some furniture, added a few feminine touches here and there, chosen the menu. In the morning I sit with Harge when he eats breakfast, have some coffee for myself, and then see him to the door._

_After, it’s quiet, even with the help in the background. I must learn to fill in the time._

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

“I need a doll,” Abby says by way of a hello, opening the front door, and Carol raises a brow, steps in and close to her, reaches back and closes the door behind herself because it’s bright and sunny today but still _cold_.

 

“Do I want to know for what purpose?” Carol teases, leaning in, brushes her cheek against Abby’s as her arm settles around her in a hug before backing away, Abby mirroring her, and Abby scoffs loudly as if offended as she leans away, though she smiles as Carol turns and slips off her coat and hangs it on the coatrack, begins to slip her gloves off next.

 

“For my _niece_ ,” Abby informs her pointedly, and Abby’s hand is on her wrist, catching her, because Carol takes a step down the hall as she tugs at the fingers of her glove, knows they’ll end up in the kitchen opening a bottle of something like they always do before they turn on the radio and play poker over cigarettes or simply sit and drink and talk. It’s what they do now, affair long over, and Abby says, half-pleading, half-directing, “New York, then drinks.”

 

She has to consider it for no less than a heartbeat—Abby’s home is already halfway to the city, and after two years of marriage all she knows for sure is that the further she can get from mansions and deb parties, the better. She has Christmas shopping to do as well, before the crowds get too big and loud and she puts it off all together out of frustration. Her martini can wait.

 

“Alright,” Carol agrees, tugs her glove back into place and with a little laugh reaches up for her coat that she’d just taken off, slips it back on, the inside of it still warm. “But you’re driving.”

 

She takes the passenger’s seat, waits as Abby wrangles the top down on her convertible and then takes her seat behind the wheel. They turn on the heat, because why not, and then Abby’s arm is around her seat, head craning back as they back out of her driveway and onto the street and then, with the shift of a gear, off for the city. They pull onto the highway and Abby turns on the radio, and it works, to drive in warmth and cold and with _Silver Bells_ playing, and Carol leans her arm against the door and her head against the palm of her hand, watching.

 

All there are now on the radio is Christmas songs. The city reflects it, too. When they reach it they hit the inevitable tangle of traffic, slow down and stop at their first red light. The buildings are decked out in lights and garlands, wreaths on doors and people shopping cheerfully.

 

It’s stop and go from here until the department store, Carol knows, and so she reaches out, turns down the radio and breaks the relative silence that’s fallen over them since leaving Abby’s house.

 

“Are you seeing anyone?”

 

Abby’s head turns just a bit, a sly look on her face, one that’s barely hiding a smile, and Carol laughs, reaches out and tugs at the edge of the scarf Abby’s got tied around her hair—to annoy her and to see if she’s got any marks on her neck, but Abby swats her hand away, reaches up and rearranges the scarf and a strand of hair that’s fallen in her face.

 

“Quit it,” Abby says. It’s meant to be sharp but her laughter negates the tone of it. “You’re going to cause an accident.”

 

“You have to tell me more,” Carol pleads, too excited to hide her eagerness, and Abby goes pink, laughs again too. She’s happy for her, of course, but there is also a part of her that wants to know more, the details, to live through Abby’s life if she can’t live it herself—she’d fallen asleep last night thinking of nothing more than craving the press of another woman’s lips against her own.

 

There was never any denial. Not about that, at least. Thinking back, young and silly, there had certainly been denial about how easy it would be to play along, to be the happy housewife to the successful businessman. A body was a body, wasn’t it?

 

But then she’d kissed Abby, engagement ring on her finger, and Abby had kissed her and she’d come with Abby between her thighs and Abby’s hand on her breast and realized the enormity of her mistake, because kissing Harge when he’d come home from work that night and letting his hands touch her in bed together had suddenly become even harder.

 

“Later, later,” Abby agrees, parking, because they are already at Frankenberg's.

 

Sales and holidays are her least favorite times to shop, everything overcrowded, but Carol slips out of her seat, makes good on her promise and follows Abby into the store with minimal complaints, to the elevator and up to the floor that houses the department with the toys, among others.

 

“She wants this _thing_ ,” Abby says absently, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a scrap of paper with her handwriting on it, and Abby dives forward into the crowd, searching for a salesgirl.

 

But Carol hangs back, lets Abby walk away in search of her gift, a rare opportunity suddenly presented to her.

 

There will be no hard feelings if she disappears for a moment and so Carol wanders because she _can_ , free to move as she pleases with no one speaking to her—there are counters swamped with customers, salesgirls with Santa hats helping them, clearly overwhelmed, children running here and there and bumping into people. One average woman will hardly attract attention.

 

The dolls bore her and Carol avoids the wall of them, finds instead that there is a glass case in the middle of the lobby with a few boys around it, peering at whatever’s inside, and she walks over, sees it’s a little train set, running round and round on its tracks.

 

It clatters and chugs along, even lets out a little noise when it passes the switch, jumps tracks with the drop of a little flag, and Carol hardly feels embarrassed to be entertained by it—one boy’s got his nose pressed up against the glass, watching with rapt attention.

 

She should be expecting by now, Carol knows, tugs once again at her gloves and removes them, lays them in the crook of her left arm as she lets her gaze linger on the boys before they eventually become bored, wander away to gawk at some new toy as the train makes its third round. They’ve had a few friends who’d married around the same time as they had, give or take a few months, and they were all welcoming or had already welcomed a child.

 

It reflects badly on them that they don’t already have a child—on herself for failing to produce a child and on Harge for choosing a wife that has failed to produce a child, and the room that should be a nursey is empty still and Harge has joined his mother’s wheedling, asking _when_ , and the whole thing has her reaching into her purse sharply, drawing a cigarette and her lighter.

 

She hardly gets further than sparking a flame when a voice informs her—

 

“I'm sorry, you're not allowed to smoke on the sales floor.”

 

Of course. How could she forget. Carol snaps the lid of her lighter back into place, turns and finds the voice comes from an employee, arms overburdened with boxes of toys, watching her with an apologetic smile. Just her luck to catch the attention of a salesgirl just passing by. But she’s gotten caught up in her thoughts with only herself to blame, and Carol nods, slips her things back into her purse and apologizes.

 

“Forgive me. Shopping makes me nervous.”

 

“That's all right,” the salesgirl says cheerfully, and the apologetic smile breaks out into a warm one, so quick and earnest that Carol finds herself smiling back despite her near faux pas. “Working here makes me nervous.”

 

And that makes her laugh, the full kind that she knows Harge’s mother hates because it accentuates the lines at the corner of her eyes, but Carol can hardly help it. So she’s not the only one with an aversion to holiday crowds.

 

“You're very kind,” Carol admits, and the salesgirl is looking at her with bright green eyes, as if everything else has fallen away from them, and in the pause that is full of something unspoken the words come to her easily. “I’m looking for a doll.”

 

“I can help you with that,” the salesgirl says, and shifts the things in her arms which must be growing heavy. “What kind of doll?”

 

“I’ve forgotten the name,” Carol says, because Abby had mumbled something and she hadn’t caught it. But she’s able to add, “It’s for the niece of a friend.”

 

The salesgirl nods, and the bobble of the Santa hat on her head shifting and sliding behind her ear. “I can show you a few and you could pick from them, if one jogs your memory?” she offers, and the nods. “Just follow me.”

 

“You’re a star,” Carol says gratefully, and as the girl rounds the corner, puts down her armful of toys on the glass countertop, she has to wonder if the pink to her cheeks is because of her or the rigors of such a demanding job.

 

In the end, she walks away from Frankenberg’s with a doll she doesn’t need, meets Abby in the lobby next to the elevator and makes up a story about needing a gift.

 

“Bullshit,” Abby whispers in her ear, the two of them crowded close in the elevator and always the master of timing. A father turns to look at them, frowning, because if Abby is one thing it is not quiet, and Carol elbows her, holds onto the box with the doll and tries not to laugh as Abby snorts in amusement.

 

                                                                

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_March 29 th, 1951_

_Everyone told us—and told us and told us—that marriage is hard work. It does take work and a delicate hand._

_As much as I hate to admit it, there are cracks. And I’m afraid the cracks are growing, no matter what I do to try to stop them. Maybe I just don’t have the talent to. One day we might end up like those homes put down unknowingly on hidden faults in the earth in California, each of us on one side of the rift and the broken space between too big to repair._

_There are times when Harge is short with me, which is often my fault. Either it’s a drink a shade too early in the day or a smoke in the living room or a bit of burned toast with his eggs at breakfast—something will be found to complain about. But the worst is that I’m not sure I want a child, and what new thing will he have to brag about at work if not a child? Bragging about me is old news, and anyways brings up unwanted questions._

_I think that he picked me out like a rug for his living room, and he made a bad mistake._

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

“I'm sure you thought it was a man who sent you back your gloves,” Therese says, smiling into her martini.

 

Without the Santa hat and the stress of work, she looks very much put together, in a skirt and a white blouse with a black vest, a grown up woman rather than a salesgirl, and Carol stills the leap of her heart, disguises it by taking her drink and raising it to her lips, too.

 

Who is the last friend she’s gone to lunch with, Carol asks herself, other than Abby? And when? It’s like walking into the department store all over again—such a simple thing feeling like a great freedom. Therese watches her, martini glass held in her hand like she’s forgotten it’s there, and she is tired of conforming, of holding her tongue, thinks she might go mad someday if she keeps trying.

 

Carol draws out her hum, puts down her glass and reaches up with a hand and runs fingers through an errant curl. “I did,” she admits with a small laugh. “Thought it might've been a man in the ski department.”

 

They’d been delivered the day before, and she’d stared at them wrapped in tissue paper, read the name if it could be called that on the note. The handwriting was feminine, wishing her a merry Christmas from employee 645-A, and her thoughts had gone immediately to the salesgirl, the way she’d watched her and that she, no doubt, had watched the salesgirl. It had been so easy to flirt—natural, even, given how smoothly the conversation had gone.

 

She’d called to satisfy her own curiosity and, admittedly, her hope. And now they’re here, and Therese apologizes, puts down her glass as well, but there’s laughter following it and she looks the picture of amusement.

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“No, I'm delighted,” Carol says with the tilt of her head, waits until the waiter who has sudden appeared leaves their lunches on the table and steps away before adding, “I doubt very much I would've gone to lunch with him.”

 

Therese looks down, a tinge to her cheeks as she picks up her fork and begins to eat. She’s not very hungry herself, too many thoughts making her stomach roil, and so Carol picks up her glass again, nurses that. The restaurant is barely half-full, and there is only herself and Therese at this table, comfortably far away from anyone else.

 

It had seemed at times as if it were something she shared with Abby and Abby alone—amidst friends talking about boyfriends and beaus and fiancees there was Abby confiding in her about the math teacher’s daughter, her only reference as a teenager and a young woman and, then, as an adult, her only affair. It had left her sure that what she shared with Abby—willingly, tenderly, of course, but not permanently, because lying to Abby was impossible—was rare to the point of accepting that that ever-present yearning would be just so, ever-present.

 

But she’s tested the waters and found them inviting, dares, and asks, “Do you live alone, Therese Belivet?”

 

It’s fresh, to ask. She’s not sure to what end she starts that line of conversation, other than her own curiosity that she has little energy left to cover up, married now and long sick of it. But she watches as Therese raises a hand to her mouth, smiles and swallows before speaking.

 

“I do,” Therese admits, and then with a tilt of her shoulders, adds, “Well, there's Richard. He'd like to live with me.”

 

 _That’s not as much of an obstacle as you’d think it would be_ , Abby had said over dinner once when they’d discussed her latest crush, a wink at her a call-back to their own affair, one that had caused Carol to roll her eyes as Abby had laughed. But a glimmer of disappointment must make its way across her face, though the furrow of a brow or the pout of a lip or any of the other little tells she’d used on Abby, which Therese must take as another sort of disappointment.

 

“Oh, no, it's nothing like that,” Therese rushes to say, and now she picks up her drink almost nervously. “I mean, he'd like to marry me.”

 

“I see,” Carol says evenly, because that doesn’t help her much either and now Therese holds onto her glass without taking a drink, looks at her with a unreadable expression. She takes pity, offers a smile and asks, “And would you like to marry him?”

 

It’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? And Therese seems to think about it, to take a drink finally and replies, smiling again.

 

“Well, I barely even know what to order for lunch.”

 

She can work with that, even as friends. Whatever they may become, Carol changes the subject, takes a bite of her own food before asking, “What do you do on Sundays?”

 

“Nothing in particular,” Therese admits, and shocks her by asking, “What do you do?”

 

She asks in a way that’s sincere, not just the _how do you do I’m fine and yourself_ sort of way she’s used to from brief introductions at parties.

 

“Oh, nothing lately,” Carol admits a bit shamefully, which is far more truthful than she’d like to consider. She used to do things, didn’t she? But she can’t remember the last book she read, or at least enjoyed reading, and she has no stories to regale her with other than inappropriate ones about things she’s done with Abby recently or that Abby’s told her about her friends.

 

“If you'd like to come visit me sometime, you're welcome to,” Carol offers, picks up her glass again to give herself something to do other than worry. “At least there's some pretty country around where I live.” She watches Therese’s expression as the offer settles, adds, “Would… you like to come visit me this Sunday?”

 

Therese nods, and there is the color to her cheeks again, beautiful.

 

“Yes, I would.”

 

 

 

 

-

_November 10 th, 1951_

_I keep waking up tired. Not just tired, but the kind of tired that leaches into your bones and makes every horizontal surface seem like a fine place for a nap._

_I think it’s boredom. The house is large and empty and silent and I’m stuck in it, with a million things to do that all feel like they amount to nothing in the end—scrapbooking with a few of the other women on the street, card night on Thursday at Barbara’s which I need to make lemon bars for, preparing for a Christmas here spent entertaining in-laws._

_Maybe a child is the answer. It would be nice to wake up to something to do, to caring for another person who loves me for me, unconditionally. I care for Harge, of course, but I can only care about him so much before he goes off to work!_

_It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally seen what Harge sees in the idea. I’ll have to start thinking of some names._

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They set up the tree in the dining room, put down the stand and then the tree in front of the big bay windows, where it can be seen by anyone who drives by outside. It’s what that window is for. Classic, Carol thinks, twining a garland of silver fuzz around the tree, holds it up over Therese’s head and laughs as Therese ducks under it, going the opposite way with a garland of gold.

 

Later, after the tree is picture-perfect and they’ve eaten and retired to the living room, drinks in hand, Therese lays eyes on the piano, wanders over and pulls out the bench, sits at it and lifts up the fallboard and lays her hands on the ivory keys.

 

The piano is a touch out of tune and Carol thinks to herself that someone needs to be called to make that right, but Therese is good, absorbed in playing whatever it is that the sheet music offers, Chopin or Debussy or something light and thoughtful and French, and Carol puts down her glass, reaches for the cigarettes on the coffee table and lights one.

 

“How did you come to play so well?” she asks conversationally, and Therese stops playing, looks up and thinks before answering.

 

“I taught myself. I like to read, and it’s just another kind of reading, isn’t it?”

 

Carol laughs, because she can see how it’s true for Therese though she’s never personally felt the need to learn to read music herself just from picking up a book.

 

“That takes determination,” Carol says, lets admiration slip through because it’s the truth. There had been a few failed violin lessons in her youth, before her mother hadn’t been able to take the noise of it and she’d lost interest in it herself. “And photography, too—were you self-taught?” She has to ask, teases and adds, “Were those pictures of me you were taking at the tree lot?” There had been wind in her face and a touch of snow, and she’d turned around from paying the lot owner to see Therese lingering near the car, camera in hands and held up just enough to give her away.

 

“I'm sorry,” Therese says immediately, the serious bend of a dark brow replacing her smile. “I should have asked.”

 

“Oh, no. Don't apologize,” Carol says quickly with the wave of her free hand, and she rises, heels long gone, pads slowly across the living room, over carpet and hardwood to the piano and leans against it. It’s probably bad for the piano, but at least she angles her cigarette away, knows enough not to get ashes in it. “I was just curious,” Carol admits, takes a drag before asking, “Did you get any good ones of the trees? They must have been pretty.”

 

“I… No. I have a friend who told me I should be more interested in humans,” Therese says, and there’s a tentative smile back on her lips, never far away, as if the very idea of photographing people is a ridiculous one.

 

“Ah.” Carol takes a final drag at her cigarette, suddenly done though it’s far from finished, walks over to the credenza and lets it rest in the ashtray that sits atop it before turning back around. “And how's that going?”

 

“It's going well, actually,” Therese admits, and the confidence in it has Carol smiling—for Therese, for herself.

 

“I'm glad,” Carol says, and walks back over, thinks and decides as Therese begins to play again. She lets her hands settle on Therese’s shoulders and leans over her just a bit, only because she’d given Florence the night off and it’s still early.

 

The piano is from Harge’s side of the family, though neither of them has ever learned to play it. The sheet music is a jumble of unknown hieroglyphics, and Therese stumbles on a few notes but picks herself back up quickly.

 

“That's beautiful,” Carol says. None of their records are of classical music, and it’s lovely, to have the sound of something so peaceful fill the house. “Is that what you want to be? A photographer? Not a pianist?”

 

“A photographer, if I have any talent for it,” Therese answers, hands sliding over keys.

 

Carol wonders what else it is that Therese photographs. There’s a whole wide world of subjects out there. It’s almost amusing that someone convinced her to be more interested in photographing people, because she can almost see Therese sitting at park benches or at cafes, photographing people on the sly to study them later, like a younger and quieter Margaret Mead. A part, but apart.

 

“Will you show me your work?” she asks, and feels like she’s been included in something private when Therese nods, stops playing and looks up over her shoulder at her. It occurs to Carol that she’s still go her hands on her, and Carol lets go, lets her hands linger on her own waist instead.

 

“Sure. I mean, I haven't sold anything or even shown a picture to someone who could buy one,” Therese says, watches her with wide eyes as Carol moves back to the couch, sits down with an arm along the back of it. “I don't even have a decent camera. But they're all at my place, under the sink, mostly.”

 

“Invite me around,” Carol says before looking away, a challenge she’s not brave enough to hold Therese’s gaze for.

 

After Abby, she’d learned to keep an eye on the clock, per se. It’d become subconscious. And before either of them can say much more, there’s the turn of the key in the lock, the front door opening, not a surprise.

 

There are things already prepared in the icebox, needing only to be warmed up, and Carol rises, walks out to the hallway.

 

“Harge.”

 

She forgets, though, that music is foreign to them and she’s left her heels in the living room, and she steps up to him, kisses him on the mouth, but that does nothing to distract him as he breaks away, takes off his hat with one hand and tugs at his scarf with the other.  

 

“Didn’t know we were having guests tonight,” he says, and oh, she can tell from just a few words that the day at the office was difficult or someone cut him off—it all amounts to a tight voice and a hard look and why did it have to be tonight?

 

“Just a friend,” Carol says, and he peers over her shoulder. How much he sees is a mystery, though she can deduce it from the way he hangs up his coat and walks into the kitchen without another word. She follows him, watches as he looks in the icebox and starts to prepare himself a meal from the things that Florence had prepared earlier.

 

“My mother wants us to come with them on vacation,” he announces, and it takes a moment for her to process it.

 

“What?” Carol says. “I thought I was cooking.”

 

“She wants us to leave tomorrow. West Palm Beach. It’ll be nicer than staying here.”

 

“I was going to cook,” Carol repeats, soft and mostly to herself. There goes her lunch date with Abby on Friday, and any other hope of seeing Therese again for a while. There goes Christmas curled up watching the snow outside, and presents under the tree she’s decorated, and eating what she wants to eat because it’s her damn house and she’s in charge. At least, she should be.

 

“What do you suggest I do?” There is the clatter of Harge nearly dropping his plate on the table, the scrape of him pulling out a chair and sitting down roughly, and Carol leans back against the countertop, holds tight, marble cool under her hands. “Do you think I prefer traipsing off for the holiday at the very last possible minute from La Guardia? It was all my mother's idea.” He takes a bite, thinks and swallows and adds, “You don’t even like to cook, Carol!”

 

It’s a lame excuse, but the only one she can think of.

 

“I'm not ready.”

 

“I'm sorry, it can't be helped,” Harge says, takes another bite and adds, “The flight's in the morning. And do you think that I've packed already?”

 

Carol sighs, looks away, and anything less than ecstasy over the news is apparently not good enough because Harge stands, walks out of the kitchen, and a little flicker of alarm has Carol follow him quickly.

 

“Goddamn it!” It’s not quiet, and she sees Therese jump a bit. “How do you know my wife?”

 

“Harge, please,” Carol says, slips her hand over the crook of his arm. “I ordered a gift from her counter for Jacqueline. Abby’s niece.” It’s the wrong thing to say. Harge takes in a breath, and Carol squeezes, hurries. “I forget my gloves, she returned them, and I thanked her.”

 

“Well, that's bold,” Harge says, voice tight but now looking at her, and Carol’s not sure to which of them he’s referring to.

 

There are the constant remarks from his mother about her dress and her hair and her smoking and her language and her family and her driving, the wheedling and pawing from Harge about finally having a child after two years of marriage, the suspicion about Abby that she denies until Harge believes her, though she shies away from Abby after that.

 

The scrapbooking is at Anna’s and Harge knows Anna’s husband so he’ll be there, talking business with Henry, and he’ll be with her at Barbara’s too, watching the game with Karl, and it is his family she’s entertaining at Christmas, Abby a persona non grata, her one remaining friend other than Jeanette—who, of course, Harge knows and approves of.

 

And now this.

 

“I’ll take her to the train station,” Carol says, and her irritation must be present because Harge stays behind in the hallway as she grabs her coat and then Therese’s, brings them both into the living room and hands Therese hers.

 

“Come on.”

 

The drive to the train station is silent, Therese in the passenger seat saying nothing. Carol finds she has nothing to say herself, too many things wanting to get out all at once and none making it past her lips.

 

It’s on the platform, Carol handing Therese her ticket, that Therese leans toward her, and Carol holds on tight, doesn’t drop the ticket as Therese hugs her.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

It’s muffled against her coat, Therese just tall enough for her head to tuck and to fit under her chin, and Carol reaches up with her free hand, cups the nape of her neck and holds her close.

                            

“Don’t worry about me, darling,” she says, and to hell with it all, because Therese is sniffling and her hands are cold without her gloves, and Carol splays her fingers, presses a kiss to the side of Therese’s head, holds it and breathes in the scent of her. Whatever it may pass for, she hardly cares.

 

He’s taken and taken from her until she hardly exists, Carol thinks, waves at the train as it departs from the station with a grinding of gears, though she can’t see Therese through the cold-fogged windows. It’s a murder of sorts, with all the finality of one, because Harge will never, ever let go.

 

There’s only one way out, so let the punishment fit the crime.  

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_March 6 th, 1952_

_So much for hope._

_I hate being disappointed over and over again. Another month and still no sign. I’m on time, and my stomach is as flat as ever. It’s a terrible feeling, more so because it’s mixed with hope for other things, too. It’s so difficult to stop, though. I’ll just say it—I just miss the old days when everything was great._

_We were so happy right after getting married. How unfair it is, that life with all its problems has to barge in and the honeymoon period has to end. I suppose nostalgia may have me in its sentimental grip. But I want to feel that warmth, the steady feeling of being loved. I miss having fun with my husband. I miss his smile. Now, there I go being sappy._

_I’m just going to move forward and hope for the best._

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She’s lucky Therese answers, later.

 

“Hello?”

 

Her voice is thick with sleep and something else, like she’d fallen asleep after a good hard cry, and Carol lets out a breath. She’d dreamt fitfully of the many different ways it could have played out—Therese hearing her voice and hanging up. Therese telling her she never wanted to see her again. Therese simply not picking up, gone forever.

 

“I was horrible yesterday.”

 

She’d have called earlier, but she’d come home to an icy house the night before, slipped into bed and pretended just as Harge did when he finally came in that she was already asleep, even when he’d said they’d stay and cancel the tickets and let his parents go on without them. He’d gotten up early, left before she’d risen, and only then had she been able to close their bedroom door, to pick up the phone on the desk and call.

 

“Will you forgive me?”

 

“Yes,” Therese says, almost stumbles over herself to say it before pausing. “I mean...”

 

“Would you let me come see you tomorrow evening?” Carol asks quickly, and hears Therese breath out before replying

 

“Alright. Yes.”

 

She knows better than to write anything down right now, memorizes Therese’s addresses and repeats it back to her to make sure she’s gotten it right before saying goodbye and hanging up. She sends Florence home for the day, too, under the guise of smoothing out things with Harge personally, in private, and then grabs her car keys.

 

She drives to the nearest bookstore, pays cash, returns home, and settles in comfortably for the day, because it will take all day, if not several more.

 

She makes herself a cup of coffee, knows a drink spells trouble right now, when she’s trying to be so precise with this. Carol waits at the counter until it’s done, pours a little cream into it and puts the cup on a saucer, takes that carefully in her hands and sits at the kitchen table.

 

There before her is her coffee and a journal and three different pens—blue, black, red, plus one pencil.

 

She opens the empty journal, turns to the first page, smooths it out, and picks up the black pen. The first date is shortly after the first time she and Harge met—the truth, believable, that she’d start a new diary at twenty-eight, on such a momentous occasion.

 

A diary, give or take two hundred entries. It’s enough to fill the span of two years—some longer, some shorter, some banal, some spectacular. Roughly two hundred entries of the story everyone wants to see, of the wonderful, head-over-heels-in-love story of Mr. and Mrs. Hargess Aird.

 

There are the fairy-tale early days, true, crucial. Carol Aird is likeable. A bit naïve, which is always the truth. And then after that, the invention. Embellishment, Carol thinks. Because the later entries contain truth, too.

 

 _I’m so very happy_ , Carol writes, a lie, and the rest flows like a perverse admission.

 

There are other dates, written with other pens and sometimes the pencil, with misspellings crossed out strategically or when her hand cramps, and some large gaps in the dates, the diary of a woman too busy to keep up with it every day but still interested enough in writing down her own thoughts.

 

She fills in details as best she can and ends the farce with last Wednesday’s date.

 

 

_December 3 rd, 1952_

_I think I may be expecting. I’m so pleased. I know I’ve been unsure and maybe even a bit scared of the idea in the past, but now that it’s finally here, it feels right. It feels like something that’ll bring us all closer together. Before, we were a couple. Married, yes, but still only two. Now we’re a family._

_There’s so much to do. I’ll think of how to tell Harge in some way that’s memorable. Then there’ll be the nursey to set up, furniture to buy, little clothes to shop for, his parents and colleagues and my friends to tell. It’s overwhelming in a good way._

_I want a daughter—what woman doesn’t? I know Harge is a good man and would be happy with whatever chance gives us, as long as it’s healthy. And speaking of. I don’t want to call it ‘it’ for eight more months, so I’ll go with ‘her’ for now._

She finishes on that note, puts down her pen and realizes how her eyes have strained—she’s written until it’s grown dark outside, mid-winter stealing the light from the late afternoon, and she stands, stretches, takes the diary, and goes upstairs.

 

The little journal is hidden in the drawer of her vanity, a beautiful mahogany piece Harge had gifted her, at one point in love and kind and accurately assessing her taste in furniture. It goes under a spare concealer and a bottle of perfume, at the bottom of the drawer, hidden just enough to seem legitimate but not enough to be impossible to find.

 

She goes back downstairs, massages the soreness from her neck, and makes dinner.

 

The meal is cold on the table, nearing eight-thirty, before she truly begins to worry. She’s gone through her rye alone at the table and it’s dark outside, snowing a bit, Harge late, and Harge is _never_ late.

 

She stands, paces in the kitchen, then goes to the hallway, peers out the window just in time to see Harge’s sleek black car pull into the driveway. Helman is driving, she knows, because Harge refuses to drive himself, the act beneath him. Relief and annoyance flood through her in equal amounts that he hadn’t called from the office beforehand, and she unlocks the front door, steps out just a pace into the cold and calls his name.

 

“Harge?”

 

Helman steps out, goes around to the backseat and opens the door, but Harge does not appear, and Carol lets out a deep sigh, walks across the gravel of the driveway in her heels and gets to the car before Harge appears, slips out of the dark backseat and stands.

 

She greets him with a kiss, but there’s a sudden grip on her wrist that’s a little harder than usual, Harge’s kiss sloppy and sharp with alcohol. Of course. The canceled plane tickets couldn’t have come without repercussions.

 

“Mmm. You smell good.”

 

He’s probably been at a bar, and there will be no help from Helman because help does not intervene. Help is neither seen nor heard, and Carol tugs him back, angles herself and Harge by extension, still tight around her wrist, towards the house, leaves the open car door for the other man to deal with because she has far larger problems than making sure Harge’s Bentley doesn’t get snow in it.

 

“You're drunk,” Carol says, and turns her head, lets Harge’s kiss miss her mouth and land on her jaw instead because that is slightly more palatable right now, takes a step backwards toward the house. But he follows, a pace forward, and his other hand grasps at her waist and his mouth slides against her neck, and Carol tries to jerk her wrist from his grip and finds it’s like iron.

 

“Harge, I'm cold,” she says, keeps her voice steady and authoritative without pushing too hard. “I'll make you some coffee.”

 

“I'm not drunk,” he says slowly, and slurs most of it.

 

She reaches down with her free hand, pushes Harge’s other hand off of her and takes another step back, yanks hard enough to gain a few steps and to make Harge away forward clumsily.

 

“Harge, let go.”

 

“What are you going to do?” Harge asks suddenly, and yanks back, catches her as she stumbles too now and falls into his arms, like some terrible dance. “You going to stay with Abby over Christmas? You going to stay with the shop girl?”

 

“Harge,” she tries again, but he continues, talks louder over her. The distance between the homes here means no one can hear, and likely they’d decline to help even if they could. A silly squabble between husband and wife, nothing more.

 

“Huh? What are you going to do, Carol? Huh?” He digs his fingers into her wrist and Carol gasps. “What is the plan!”

 

“Stop it!” she hisses, because shouting will do her no good now and it hurts, and she yanks once more, twists out of his grip. Whether Harge lets her go or is too dizzy to keep fighting, she neither knows no cares. All that matters is that finally her wrist slips from his grasp and he lets her go, and stares at her, pointing belligerently instead.

 

“Damn it! I put nothing past women like you, Carol.”

 

She cradles her wrist in her free hand, cold and tired and scared. It’s the first time he’s laid hands in her in such a manner, and she’s not looking to repeat it. But to lay down and accept what's just happened might invite more violence, so she gambles and turns her back on him, aware of his gaze on her as she turns and walks back into their house, calls out—

 

“You married a woman like me.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_December 14 th, 1952_

_My husband has come undone._

_Harge nearly twisted my wrist last night. He drank a little too much—it’s understandable, with the stress of his job. The pain—not so much. He wants a child, has always wanted one, and now we have one on the way, though he doesn’t know it. But what’s changed the most is that now I’m afraid. I have bruises from where his fingers dug into me._

_But fear is shameful. What kind of wife is afraid of their husband? What kind of wife spends the night in the guest room, jerking awake from the lightest of sleeps at every creak of the floorboards? It was a fluke, a series of bad days. It’s not Harge, not really. So I will put these thoughts aside and practice believing my husband loves me and will love this baby, and that this child may save our marriage._

_But I could be wrong._

Carol puts down her pen. She’s worked many hours, changed many pens and pencils, made up details she’d forgotten as best as she could—and now she’s tired of it. It’s lucky her left wrist hurts and not her right one.

 

It’s all happened much more quickly than she’d wanted and anticipated, but let today be the last entry, for better or worse.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

She keeps her lunch date with Abby, is glad to drive out and park and walk up the restaurant, check in with the maître d’ and find Abby already in a booth. She slips into it with a grateful sigh, sets down her purse and orders a martini, careful to keep her wrist hidden because the last thing she wants right now is questions from Abby.

 

The fill each other in on the small things—how Abby’s job is going and her plans for Christmas, and Carol’s own white lies about what she’s done over the past few days in particular. Luckily, Abby is more interested in hearing and talking about far juicier gossip, like about Therese and talking about her own romances.

 

“I got my eye on this redhead who owns a steakhouse outside of Paramus,” Abby says, takes a bite of her sandwich before holding it thoughtfully. “I’m talking _serious_ Rita Hayworth redhead.”

 

“Really?” Carol says, ignores her own sandwich. There is a slaw on the side which she eats instead, picks at it with her fork in absent, nibbling bites. Abby’s chosen a good restaurant, with real and hardy food. It’s a nice change from poached salmon and foie gras. “You think you have what it takes to handle a redhead?”

 

“Damn straight, I do,” Abby shoots back, looking affronted. “You know that. Remember Boston?”

 

It earns a laugh from her. It had been a great road trip, before she’d been married, the two of them single and looking for trouble and driving along the highway without a care in the world, Jacopo on the dashboard and overnight bags in the trunk

 

“I do. I remember. I can’t believe I ever doubted you,” she reassures Abby. If Abby’s ability to woo women is anything like it was back then or, hell, even what it was the last time she’d kissed her, Abby will have no trouble at all with her redhead.

 

A silence falls over them, unusual, and Abby purses her lips in a moue of concern.

 

“You going somewhere?”

 

Abby can always tell when she’s about to run. She is _not_ a runner, and it’s so rare and Abby’s known her so long that the signs must be lit up like neon.

 

“Yes,” Carol admits slowly, know it’s probably not easy for Abby to hear because Abby cares for her, has and still does, but more like a sister now. She’ll see her again somehow, but she hasn’t figured out quite how yet. “West, I thought. At least for a few weeks,” Carol lies. “What else am I going to do? When two people love each other and can’t make that work, that’s the real tragedy.”

 

“Well, I know you don't like driving alone, so,” Abby says, ending that thought abruptly as she takes a drink. “She's young. Please tell me you know what you're doing.”

 

She’s guessed completely wrong. She’d thought only of Harge being blamed—but not for that. It’ll help though if anyone ever thinks to speak with Abby. A not-quite-correct story of a woman intending to run away with another woman but caught leaving might not garner much public sympathy, but in the eyes of the law a man suspected of murdering his wife is still a murderer, cheater or not.

 

“I don't,” Carol admits, the truth. “I never did.”

 

They finish lunch and she says her goodbyes, kisses Abby on both cheeks, and drives. She makes stops at two stores she’s had on her list of places to visit since the call, picks up what she needs, and heads over to Therese’s apartment.

 

“Your landlady let me in,” she says when Therese opens the door, and reaches out with a foot, pushes the valise towards Therese. “Merry Christmas. Open it.”

 

Inside, she accepts a beer from Therese, cold and slick, swallows the drink to wash away the tightness in her throat as Therese sets the valise down on her table, unlocks both latches and lifts the lid.

 

“Oh, Carol,” she breathes, and Carol smiles wide.

 

“I asked him which was the best one in the store. There’s lots of extra film for you, too,” she says, a bit uselessly, because she’s willing to bet she knows less about what she’s just purchased than Therese does. She puts her bottle down on the table, looks around. The apartment is clean and neat but somewhat bare, and she has to ask, “You really do keep your work under the sink?”

 

And Therese does, though not the kitchen sink—she steps away and comes back, moves the valise to the floor and spreads out photos on the table. Carol takes a seat, leans her elbows on the table and her chin on her hand.

 

“I have a couple from Central Park,” Therese says, showing her some large prints of skyscrapers viewed from between trees, a swan on the lake, a woman walking by in the distance pushing her child in a stroller. Carol holds them carefully, knows enough to keep her fingers on the wide white borders to avoid leaving fingerprints all over the photo. “Some more about town,” Therese says, spreading a few more across the table—more skyscrapers, a falcon perched far up on a street sign, the steel and wires of the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

Finally Therese spreads out a few more, ones that Carol recognizes. “These are from the lot,” Therese explains, and there are a few of trees but more than one of her turning, looking back. “I was rushed. I mean, I can do better.”

 

“It's perfect,” Carol says, picking up the photo and studying it. It probably sounds conceited, but she looks at herself, wonders when was she last captured with that sort of smile on her face. She sits back against her chair, doesn’t move as Therese takes a seat across from her.

 

“What’s that?” Therese asks, quiet, and Carol shakes her head, uses her free hand to push at her sleeve.

 

“Later,” she promises, setting down the photo and standing. She walks back over to the coatrack, grabs her purse, and smiles. “Now, what are we ordering? What do you like? I’m paying.”

 

Later, like she’d promised, after pizza and another beer, they sit on the roof outside together, facing each other—Therese’s back to the wall of the air conditioning unit and herself with her back toward the ledge of the building. Therese’s hands are cold over her wrist, tracing finger-shaped bruises.

 

“I feel useless, like I can't help you or offer anything.”

 

There are little flakes of snow caught in her dark hair, that Carol reaches out and brushes away with the hand Therese is not currently holding.

 

“It has nothing to do with you,” Carol admits, lets her hand slip and cup Therese’s jaw for a moment, a white lie again because what has gone on between her and Harge from the beginning of their marriage to now is not about Therese—she’s only a catalyst. “I'm going away for a while,” Carol says, puts the idea out there so that she has to go through with it, and feels Therese’s fingers still against her.

 

“When? Where?”

 

It’s dejected, green eyes imploring her to stay.

 

“Wherever my car will take me. West. Soon,” Carol says. She slips her wrist out of Therese’s grasp, but locks their fingers together instead, licks her lips before asking, “And I thought perhaps you might like to come with me. Would you?”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

There is a puddle on the hardwood floor of their kitchen, large and dark.

 

Jeanette works at the hospital alongside Cy, and it’s easy enough to ask to shadow her, to volunteer for a day in the charitable spirit of Christmas, to walk away momentarily for the ladies room and slip a packet of blood off a nurse’s cart here and another there, to place them carefully into the pockets of her coat.

 

She has to use scissors to puncture the material of the bag, washes the scissors clean in the sink and dries them and puts them away in their proper place before thinking and standing in front of the icebox.

 

Here will do. Here is believable. Here is enough space for something to have happened to her, something involving Harge and a lot of blood and a body left on the floor before a hasty clean-up.

 

Carol pours first one bag and then the other onto the floor, gags and nearly retches at the thick smell of iron that fills the room.

 

She gets down on her knees, swallows to steady her gorge and reaches out, runs both hands through the cold pool of blood and swipes left, right, slow, erratic. When she stands the hardwood looks like a child’s painting, made with only one ugly color.

 

Carol cleans her hands, sits and lets the whole mess dry a bit and listens to a record before she comes back and cleans it up, makes sure not to do so too well, so someone will be sure to notice. The blood-stained rags she uses to mop up she washes thoroughly and throws in a bag which will go in her car—left here in the bin in the yard they’d be too on the nose, too obvious, too amateur.

 

She washes down the sink, takes a look around, and walks upstairs, past the staircase which holds no pictures and past the nursey which is still empty, goes to their room and opens Harge’s wardrobe, roots among the shoes in the bottom for the wooden case that holds the revolver.

 

She takes it, because that and the blood and the doll from Frankenberg’s she leaves behind tell a story—breadcrumbs, that she’d been planning, nesting, and how, she and the gun gone without a trace, Harge had taken it all away. She leaves her journal somewhere hidden but easy to find, stashes it in her bedside table, under a stack of papers and some books and an old birthday card from Abby.

 

Carol pauses on her way out, hates to do it but with some effort kicks over the glass-topped coffee table, watches it hit the ground and shatter into a million little pieces on the hardwood which will be scratched too, before knocking over a chair too for good measure. Last but not least, she steps out the door and leaves the front door closed but not locked behind her—wide open would be stupid, and locked would be stupid, too—and drives away.

 

Men have met their ends for far less, in one fashion or another. Maybe not white men, maybe not rich men. But it doesn’t look good for Harge, either, even with an alibi. He won’t die, though. She’s not worried about that. She’d be surprised if he were even arrested on suspicion.

 

But let him play the grieving husband. Let his name be mud. Let him be scared.

 

There is nothing in the car, but it does not bother her. Carol turns on the radio, listens to The Drifters sing about a white Christmas and smiles because she has no need for money or nice clothes or anything else she’s leaving behind if she can just be free, presumed dead.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Therese’s apartment is her last stop. She parks a ways away from it, kills the engine and slips out and locks it behind her, walks the last few blocks.

 

Someone else lets her in again, some man passing by who hardly looks at her, and she climbs the stairs, heels loud in the silence, wonders what direction her life will take in the next few minutes. It’s only when she knocks, when Therese lets her into her apartment, when she closes the door behind herself, that Carol speaks.

 

She explains it all, unable to lie so profoundly to Therese and with such consequences.

 

“I can understand,” Carol says when she finishes, “if this changes your opinion of me.”

 

But Therese surprises her once again, like she always does, leans up on her tiptoes with her hands on her shoulders and kisses her, lets Carol pull her close and deepen it from sweet to sultry, hands on her body, before breaking away.

 

“I want to come with you,” Therese says, breathless.

 

And so now Carol unlocks her car, opens the trunk of the Packard and knows already in what city she’ll leave it, the rags in the back too—they just have to get there first.

 

Therese rounds the corner, comes down from her apartment carrying the valise, places it in the trunk and lets Carol reach up and close it as Therese turns around with a soft _ah_ , a look on her face. “Forgot something. I’ll be right back,” she says with a smile, and Carol nods, lets herself back into the car and sits behind the wheel as Therese darts back around the corner and into the building.

 

When she returns Therese lets herself in, slips into the passenger seat holding a metal thermos. “Coffee,” she explains with a smile, and it does feel like a road trip all of the sudden, something enjoyable to be done together though she hasn’t quite figured out where they’ll end up.

 

“Alright,” Carol says, takes a deep breath, steadies herself as she turns the key, turns her head and meets green eyes. “Ready?”

 

“Ready,” Therese replies, a hand slipping over hers where it rests on the gear shift and squeezes, and after that it’s easy to pull out into traffic and drive and to leave New York behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
